Sulon

[NumberWan]

SULON Locations

Sulon is a small agricultural moon of the volcanic planet Sullust, which is a home to Sullustans (perhaps one of the reasons we added them in the mod). It was once a peaceful world with farms and small estates until the Galactic Empire showed up. At one point it was under control of the Dark Jedi Jerec and also home to Kyle Katarn and his family. Morgan Katarn, the now deceased father of the legendary Jedi Knight, helped the Rebels and Alliance sympathizers escape from Empire.

In Dark Pastime Sulon is one of the first missions.

 

There are only a few screenshots, but we'll add more later.

01. Katarn's Home

More or less a nostalgic location for all true Dark Forces II fans. The house of Kyle Katarn, where he grew up, is a calm and cozy estate, which once belonged to his father. After the latest's death, the house was robbed by a Dark Jedi Boc and then occupied by Grave Tuskens. It is presumed by the events of Dark Forces II, that the house was cleansed of any thugs in the area and used as a minor base of operations for both Kyle and Jan Ors in their quest against Dark Jedi Jerec.

In Dark Pastime it's a small mission, where Kyle walks through familiar and now restored rooms and corridors of the old familiar house.

 

 

 
02. Abandoned Residence

This is supposed to be a very small map, where Kyle works together with Jan Ors - they have to investigate the old Imperial residence, where she'd spotted some nasty people some days before.

03. River Chase (cut)

The river chase was supposed to be a map, where a Player rides a boat through the so-called canals of Sulon, from the abandoned house up to the city of Barons Hed. During this trip the Player would be chased by various mercenaries and Grave Tuskens. The level was ultimately removed both from the story and as a map per se.

04. Barons Hed

Barons Hed is presumably the largest and the only city on Sulon, that's been liberated some time ago from the Imperials. The local Governor resides here, as well as a Republic base was established near the former Imperial palace. The latest events show, that not everything is going as smooth as everyone believed. The riots in the city is one of the reasons, why kyle Katarn has to return to his home planet.

Here's the old screenshot of Barons Hed, when the DP mod was still in development for Jedi Outcast years ago.

05. Governor's Palace

The once feared Imperial government finally left Sulon for good. It was the people's decision to pursue an independent way of life, rather than joining one of the existing Galactic-dominating powers. Nevertheless the local Sulonese Governor has good relations with the Republic officials and granted the area around the former Imperial Tower as a base for the Republic troops. The situation in the Galaxy is still quite unstable, so more security will do good.

However the Governor makes a crucial mistake, that brings new tragic events to Sulon...

 

 

All these maps are complete, but need renovation and in some places more details and better lights. =) It's not that difficult, but also takes time. From time to time I create new textures, as most of the old ones are based on those, seen in DF II, and as you know, they are not the best example of quality.

[Circa]

Those look great!

[NumberWan]

Thanks, Circa!

But as I said - those are mainly old screens. We want to add some elements into the levels. 

 

Sulon is also the first map to experiment on NPCs AI regarding the Player's ability to take away their weapons by Force Pull and thus making them almost mindless drones. I really hate that, at least in MOTS stormtroopers wouldn't give up without a fight! With fists, but they would still attack us.

 

And that's what I tried to add to the game. To tell the truth, this work wasn't fruitless, but needs perfection. 

[NumberWan]

It's been so long! Yet the maps for Sulon are complete for the most part. I changed a few things like scripts, textures, added new models and characters, as well as changed the general layout. This map of Morgan Katarn's house was the very first map I made for Jedi Outcast back in 2005 or so. I can't say I was satisfied with it those days, but there was little I could do to improve it. I think, it's a nice to thing to preserve its somehow naive interpretation from dark Forces II, yet I've added some details to bring back the spirit of good old DF2.

Currently some models are in process of completion and some textures were replaced with a HD version.

[Chansta]

Damn I'd kill to have that map, for sandbox/ rping purposes

[NumberWan]

We've updated the city – its streets, markets and of course – the cantina  

The locals got their classic looks from Dark Forces II. Not exactly the same, but the similar style is there. Also added a few more variations. Female skins coming too! 

 

 

 

[Cornelius CornJulio]

Oh man, bloody nostalgia!

Glad to see people to trying to remaster places from other games into JKA from scratch.  Really appreciate it, and Chapeau for the hard work! 

[SephFF]

On 11/29/2023 at 4:46 PM, NumberWan said:

We've updated the city – its streets, markets and of course – the cantina  

 

 

I'm happy to see this looks like I got some competition. I also been working on Barons hed.... Tho i'm making 2 versions... one mostly original everything... the other updated... Also a WIP.

So far I really like what ya did.

 

Spoiler

The question i got for ya.... is how did you build this part?...... the angles for the pillars in the market place?
 

Spoiler

Mine is a bit different than yours as its close to 1 to 1 in how it was in OG game. But i'm struggling to get it built clean with brushwork. Was wondering how you tackled it. It looks built in the image but its not clean brushwork so I have to rebuild it completely.

 

hit me up on discord can VC about it if ya want.

[NumberWan]

11 hours ago, Cornelius CornJulio said:

Oh man, bloody nostalgia!

Glad to see people to trying to remaster places from other games into JKA from scratch.  Really appreciate it, and Chapeau for the hard work! 

Thanks! that's what we also thought, I guess, actually some years ago. I played Dark Forces II multiple times as a kid, and this location was probably the first i my experience to show a simple town in a Star Wars game. You would have to fight off a few mercs there, but still possible to enjoy the feel of a city, occupied by the Empire. It was fun to build.

2 hours ago, SephFF said:

The question i got for ya.... is how did you build this part?...... the angles for the pillars in the market place?

There is no big secret, but it was probably the hardest thing to pull off in Radiant. In this regards NetRadiant works far better than the original level editor, as I used meshes and Brush triangles. The brushes were used for pillars, several triangle ones were placed together to form a wall under certain angle. The method you show either an ase or md3 model is actually a nice method! This was used for the mountains of Tatooine in JA, but we use it too for a more complex architecture, when using meshes and brushes aren't enough.

We also thought of making the city 1:1 like in Dark Forces, but it was difficult back when we started. Besides our map shows the city almost 10+ years after the events of the original game. We assumed, that the Empire is gone and the city is slowly restoring it, so the general layout is probably the same, but the materials and details look differently this time. We didn't recreate the Canal area, which you've recreated most remarkably.

[SephFF]

2 hours ago, NumberWan said:

 

There is no big secret, but it was probably the hardest thing to pull off in Radiant. In this regards NetRadiant works far better than the original level editor, as I used meshes and Brush triangles. The brushes were used for pillars, several triangle ones were placed together to form a wall under certain angle. The method you show either an ase or md3 model is actually a nice method! This was used for the mountains of Tatooine in JA, but we use it too for a more complex architecture, when using meshes and brushes aren't enough.

We also thought of making the city 1:1 like in Dark Forces, but it was difficult back when we started. Besides our map shows the city almost 10+ years after the events of the original game. We assumed, that the Empire is gone and the city is slowly restoring it, so the general layout is probably the same, but the materials and details look differently this time. We didn't recreate the Canal area, which you've recreated most remarkably.

yeah the canal was stupid hard....

For mine I have the original model from DF2 as an obj. I scaled it till It was the same size from either kyles POV in DF2/JKA. When i first started this I tried to do it from image reference.(it was waaaay off) Then I tried importing the entire obj into NRC and rebuild the brush work that way. (also not a great idea but kinda worked) Now I do one of 3 things... using blender plugin to export brushwork I invert the normals, export into NRC and extrude flat side of the face, use the faces as a reference and use CSG merg tricks to get things right or for normal rooms i build like I normally do for any other map.

The canal was stupid hard to build and that bridge was also not easy. I actually hade to build the bridge in blender with basic shapes and export as brushwork, not faces to get it right. took me like 4 tries to get it right. that model is a placed holder so when I build the sky box you can see the tower in the right spot.

 

Spoiler

 

 

@NumberWan

FYI.... when i do make this....ill release the source files.... feel free to use whatever ya want....or if want something now i can give it to ya. I also plan an making Max into an NPC.... gatta model him and all still.

Edited December 18, 2023 by SephFF
forgot to say something.

[NumberWan]

We actually completed this part of the city, as well as the area around the Palace – not as large as in DF2, as it includes some portion of it. Due to various limitations of JA engine, we had to split the location into several maps.

[Cornelius CornJulio]

@NumberWan Personally, I will appreciate whatever you make, even if it's not 100% stone by stone accurate when done everything by hand and from scratch.

It drives me myself fucking nuts when I am trying to do recreations of places from other classic SW Video Games from scratch and by hand. I would not wish anybody to partake that Formula 1 trip to insanity.

Anything being made regardless of any inaccuracies, be it small or big, is appreciated.

Keep doing this nostalgia driven passion project, habibi!  Cannot wait "revisit" this place  

[Archangel35757]

Keep up the great work!